With the advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) on the Internet, and the increasing popularity of on-line services over telephone lines, E-Mail (electronic mail) and other forms of electronic documents and messages have become a popular form of communication. In the discussion that follows, e-mail is used as a primary example of the sorts of messages and documents that may be processed, but it should be understood throughout that the invention disclosed and taught herein is broadly applicable to electronic documents and messages of all sorts.
Conventionally, E-Mail is a service provided by an Internet provider, that is, a commercial service connected to the Internet that sells or otherwise provides software to users to establish Internet access. NetCom™, America On Line™, and others are examples. An Internet provider has one or more servers, which are specialized computers, connected to phone lines for interconnecting with other Internet servers around the world. A user installs the provider's software on his or her computer, connected by a modem to a telephone line, either ISDN or analog, and executes the software. Typically a user interface queries the user for a password, then establishes and grants access to the Internet through the provider's hardware.
One of the services providers typically make available to their subscribers is E-Mail. Each user has an E-Mail address which is unique to all Internet users, not just those subscribing to a particular provider's service. The service provider makes mass storage space available on an E-Mail server for its own subscriber's, identified by E-Mail address. Internet user's the world over can then send one another E-Mail, which will be saved at each person's service provider's server, and the subscriber may check periodically for new E-Mail, download, save, and print messages, and respond to the sender's messages. There are, as is known in the art, many differences and nuances among E-Mail systems, and new capabilities are being regularly developed and brought to market. Such services are called POP services in the art, for Post Office Protocol.
There are, as stated above, also types of messages other than e-mail which may be electronically transmitted, much as e-mail is accessed and transmitted; among these are facsimile messages and voice mail.
One common difficulty that has not been adequately addressed until the present invention is that it is somewhat cumbersome to access E-Mail, regardless of provider. Typically, to access E-Mail, a subscriber has to turn on the computer connected to a modem, boot the Internet provider's software, enter a password by a user interface, then wait for communication to be established, which typically involves display of an interactive interface, which includes a menu or Icon selection (or both) for activating the E-Mail service. Upon selecting the E-Mail icon, a window appears wherein E-Mail messages are listed in some order, such date and time received.
Once a list of messages is received, a user can select individual messages to read, wherein the actual message is displayed in the E-Mail window or another window; to save, in which case selected messages may be saved to a mass storage device, such as a hard disk drive (HDD); to print, in which case a listed message is downloaded from the remote server and printed on printer connected to the subscriber's computer, or to delete, in which case the selected message or messages are erased at the provider's server. In some systems other options may be available.
In any case, the activity of keeping track of, and responding to E-Mail messages is somewhat cumbersome and time consuming. There are applications known to the inventor which will periodically, on a timed basis, access an E-Mail service and check for waiting messages, and notify a user with an audio or visual alarm, or both, but these facilities require that the user's computer be on, and in many office situations, the user does not wish to leave the computer on.
Even in a situation where a user does have the computer on while at work, the E-Mail access requires logging onto the Internet and accessing the E-Mail server, which might interfere with other activities at the computer.
What is needed is an Electronic Document Answering Machine, having in one embodiment some electronic intelligence, a modem, a relatively small random access memory (RAM) space, a small non-volatile memory, and a minimum operating system. The Electronic Document Answering Machine is implemented in a stand-alone enclosure and connects to a host by a standard serial or parallel port. This unit could be set to access the Internet periodically, check for mail, and have a light and/or audio signal for notifying a user. The unit works whether or not the user's computer is on, and has buttons for playback and the like, wherein a user may have messages read out by synthesized voice. There are many other useful functions such a machine will provide, as disclosed more fully below. Among these functions are receipt and handling of voice mail, facsimile messages, WEB pages, and other sorts of electronic documents and messages as needed, and such a machine could alert a user to the fact of any and all sorts of such messages waiting to be reviewed.